“It is too expensive” - Another excuse for not going paperless

2/11/2014

Paperless initiatives cost money in the short-term to get them started. There is no avoiding it. However, it may be less than you think. The first reaction from many managers is to look at a file room and ask for a quote to image “everything.” Well, that is a lot of work, and of course it will cost a lot of money. It also is not the way to approach the problem. In our experience, old files are rarely touched. In fact, there is less than a 10% probability you will need to look at anything that is more than a couple of years old. That says the real project is to start imaging recent documents and everything from this day forward. At the same time, you can begin to replace paper forms with electronic forms to gain even greater savings.

But that still does not address the big back-file of old documents. Since the old documents are probably very inactive, the ideal strategy is to partner with a vendor who will store them in a secure offsite records center, and be capable of imaging them only on demand. That way, you can act as if all the old files are already in digital form, even though you will not pay to convert them until you actually need them. With a proper governance and retention program, over time, you will be able to destroy the old paper files, and your digital initiative will be firmly in place.